PINEHURST, NC--(Marketwire - June 9, 2008) - On Monday, June 9, 2008, at 5 p.m. Eastern
Time, surgeons, cardiologists, other health care providers and patients are
invited to join Andy C. Kiser, M.D., in a live panel presentation of the Paracardioscopic
Ex-Maze procedure for the treatment of long-standing atrial
fibrillation.

Dr. Kiser will moderate the live webcast and will be joined by Professor
Gerhard Wimmer-Greinecker, M.D., Ph.D. Professor Wimmer-Greinecker is
professor of cardiac surgery at the JW-Goethe University, Frankfurt,
Germany, and chairman of the Department for Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery at
the Heart & Vascular Centre in Bad Bevensen in Northern Germany.

In fall 2007, Dr. Kiser and Professor Wimmer-Greinecker performed the
world's first minimally invasive Ex-Maze procedure.

Dr. Kiser and Professor Wimmer-Greinecker will be joined by a patient who
has recently undergone the Paracardioscopic Ex-Maze procedure with great
success.

For many years, the "gold standard" for a-fib treatment has been a surgical
procedure called the Cox Maze, which requires opening the chest, stopping
the heart, cutting it into sections and sewing it back together. Dr. Kiser
has led the development of a new version of the Cox Maze.

Called the Ex-Maze, the procedure creates an extensive pattern of scar
tissue on the heart's surface and controls the heart's abnormal electrical
impulses without the complexity of similar procedures. Initially, Dr. Kiser
performed the Ex-Maze only on patients who were having some other type of
open-chest procedure such as a coronary artery bypass. The minimally
invasive Ex-Maze procedure is done through small incisions without opening
the chest.

According to Dr. Kiser, a key challenge in the development of a minimally
invasive epicardial, bi-atrial maze procedure on a beating heart is the
creation of the lesions on the posterior region of the heart.

"By placing a small port in the abdomen through the diaphragm, one has
direct access into the adjoining pericardial space and to the back of the
heart," he says. "This new approach is called paracardioscopy, and is an
essential part of a true minimally invasive procedure to treat atrial
fibrillation. Combined with a similar small port access on the patient's
right side, the surgeon has direct access to the entire backside of the
heart. The ability to visualize the back of the heart allows the precise
creation of complete conduction blocking patterns."

In January, Dr. Kiser was invited to make a presentation on the minimally
invasive Ex-Maze at the national meeting of the American College of
Cardiology in Chicago and will be presenting at the International Society
for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery in Boston in June. He has also been
invited to speak at one of the largest cardiothoracic meetings in Europe,
the 22nd annual meeting of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic
Surgery (EACTS) in Lisbon, Portugal. This presentation on the minimally
invasive Ex-Maze will take place in September.

Atrial fibrillation (a-fib), which affects an estimated five million
people, is the most common type of heart rhythm disturbance. It is the
rapid, uncoordinated beating of the atria, the two upper chambers of the
heart.

The atria quiver instead of beating in rhythm when the electrical impulses
that cause them to contract travel through the heart in chaotic fashion.
Some people with a-fib are severely debilitated by weakness, shortness of
breath or pain. Others have no symptoms at all.

The Paracardioscopic Ex-Maze offers a-fib patients a new treatment
alternative to the cut-and-sew Cox Maze.